Marble houses and marble towers that were once filled with laughter, music, and emotion now stood in silence. A quiet sorrow blanketed the land.

  The curse called the “Eternal Heat” swept through this once-prosperous kingdom, turning the people of Ironhart into stone. Mothers clutching their children, guards standing proudly at their posts, nobles mid-conversation—all frozen in an instant. Their final moments are captured forever, like forgotten statues in a sunlit mausoleum.

  And yet, among the stone remnants of a lost kingdom, one girl still walked.

  Princess Prickilliana Ironhart II—known much to her dismay as simply "Prick"—moved with slow, measured steps. Her cloak trailed behind her through the dust that now covered her family’s once-immaculate palace.

  Sixteen years old, blonde-haired, and fair-skinned, she bore the name of the ancestor who founded the Ironhart bloodline.

  Yet Prick had never felt at home in the crown she was born to wear.

  She had always longed for freedom. Even as a child, she was a master of escaping—ducking out of etiquette lessons, skipping royal banquets, and sneaking past castle guards.

  Her favorite hideout was the palace library, where ancient tomes stacked like towers offered a refuge far from royal expectations.

  While her tutors rolled their eyes at her absence, her mother, Queen Selestiana Ironhart, never scolded her. She would find her daughter tucked away in the library's shadowed corners, lost in a book twice her size.

  “Compassion, Prickilliana,” her mother would often say, stroking her hair, “is a queen’s greatest sword. Even stronger than steel.”

  Prick adored her mother. She would wrap her arms around her, bury her face in her lap, and listen for hours as Selestiana told her stories of the world beyond their borders.

  They would sit together beside the windowsill, the Queen humming softly while Prick read tales of forgotten heroes, magical springs, and ancient legends.

  Her father, King Peregrion Ironhart, loved her too—but differently.

  With the weight of the realm on his shoulders and no other heirs to take up the mantle, he was stern. He believed strength came through discipline, that ruling meant setting aside softness for duty. Prick, with her bookish rebellion and sharp tongue, tried his patience daily.

  “You are the future of Ironhart,” he would say, time and time again. “And you will act like it.”

  But Prick wasn’t interested in ruling. She didn’t care for swordplay or learning the correct bow to greet a duke.

  She wanted adventure, stories, and freedom. The palace, to her, was a cage lined with marble and gold.

  On her sixteenth birthday, that tension reached its peak.

  The palace was filled with nobility and delegates from neighboring kingdoms, all gathered to celebrate the princess’s coming of age.

  Banners with her name were strung across the halls, and musicians played joyful tunes under golden chandeliers.

  But Prick wasn’t joyful.

  Dressed in a simple tunic and boots instead of the embroidered royal gown selected for her, she arrived late to the ballroom and addressed the guests with snide comments.

  “You expect me to bow to someone just because their title is longer than their name?” she snapped at one particularly arrogant noble.

  Her father exploded. “Enough! You will show proper etiquette! You are a princess—act like one!”

  “And maybe I’d act like one if I had a choice in the matter!” she shouted back, storming from the room as whispers followed her.

  Heart pounding, she fled to the library. Her sanctuary.

  She didn’t know how long she had read, curled up beside a candle and ancient parchment. Time drifted. The sound of music, laughter, and conversation seemed to fade.

  Too much.

  She looked up. Silence. Not even the faint echo of the harp. Not even the shuffle of feet.

  Something was wrong.

  She stood and crept through the dim halls. The silence grew thicker. When she opened the ballroom doors, her breath caught.

  Everyone was frozen.

  Statues stood where guests had danced. Servants mid-step. The musicians with their instruments paused in the middle of a note.

  “No…”

  She ran through the palace.

  “Mother! Father!”

  She found them in the middle of the Ballroom.

  Selestiana was reaching out, as if to hold her.

  Her hand—stone. Her eyes were wide, mouth was parted in silent fear.

  King Peregrion stood beside her, face stern but unmoving.

  “No, no, wake up! Please wake up!” Prick dropped to her knees, clutching her mother’s cold hand. She sobbed into her lap, her tears sliding down marble skin.

  She cried until the moon rose, until the candles burned out, until her throat was hoarse.

  And then, she ran.

  Through the palace. Through the city. Past markets and gardens, and courtyards—everywhere, stone. Everyone.

  A day later, hollow and red-eyed, she returned to the library. She searched feverishly. Then she found it—a tome buried in a forgotten corner.

  The Legend of the Lost Oasis.

  Said to lie beyond the desert, where no sun dared shine. A place of eternal water and magic. Where curses could be undone. Where even the dead could rise.

  She packed what she could: A brown satchel where she put her canteen full of water, a book without anything written on it, and a rope she found before leaving the kingdom.

  She then traded her silks for travel leathers. Slipped through the palace gates under the cover of darkness.

  With a final glance at the city of stone, she whispered goodbye.

  Then she began to walk.

  The Wailing Wastes stretched endlessly. A graveyard of dunes and blistering winds.

  By day, the sun scorched. By night, the cold bit deep. Sandstorms raged without warning. Obsidian-scaled snakes darted through the dust.

  Still, she moved forward.

  Her feet blistered. Her skin burned. She slipped, fell, and scraped her knees. She sobbed alone under the stars. But she got up. Every time.

  “I must reach it,” she whispered. “I must save them.”

  She hunted desert rodents with traps she remembered from books. She found shade beneath jagged rocks. She used cloth to filter brackish water. She adapted.

  Even as her body weakened, her spirit sharpened.

  Each passing day in the Wailing Wastes chipped away at the life she had once known.

  Princess Prick, who had once lounged in silken beds with velvet pillows, now lay curled beneath jagged rocks, clutching her satchel like it were the last familiar thing in the world.

  Her canteen had long since dried up. The water she had rationed with such care had not been enough for the endless heat.

  Her lips cracked. Her voice grew hoarse. But she did not stop.

  When thirst clawed at her throat, she remembered a passage from a book she once read—about using hollow reeds to collect condensation at dawn, and about coconuts in desert palm groves, buried between dunes like oases wrapped in secrecy.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  On the third day, she found one. A lone tree leaning against the wind, its fruits dangling just out of reach. She scanned the area, her mind running through possibilities.

  “No ladder,” she mumbled. “No climbing skills. But… maybe a tool.”

  She scoured the sand, collecting sticks, wrapping them together with the thin rope she had pulled from her cloak.

  The result was a makeshift spear with a forked prong, crudely designed to hook and yank. She adjusted the length, remembering a diagram from an engineering scroll. Then she tested it, wobbling beneath the tree.

  Sweat poured down her brow. Her arms ached. She poked, hooked, pulled, and missed. Again. Again.

  Finally, a coconut fell.

  She drank greedily, the cool liquid like starlight on her tongue.

  When it was gone, she let herself cry—not from sadness, but from relief. Her stick-tool, though awkward, worked. And it would come with her.

  The next morning, she awoke to claw marks near her shelter.

  Something had watched her.

  She doubled her traps, fashioning simple snares from tension-bent branches and vine loops. A tiny creature with scaled wings fell into one. It squirmed and chirped as she approached.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, closing her eyes. “But I have no choice.”

  It was the first time she’d ever taken a life. The taste of its meat was bitter, but she ate it. Survival, she reminded herself, had no room for guilt.

  On the fifth night, while writing in her book on her journey so far, a sandstorm buried half her camp.

  Her stick-tool broke in half when she used it to prop up a tarp for shelter. She cried again—but this time in frustration, pounding the sand with her fists. Her nails tore. Her hands bled.

  Pain was still foreign. Before this journey, the worst she'd felt was a stubbed toe or the occasional scraped elbow. Now, her body ached in ways she didn’t know existed—bruises, burns, blisters that throbbed with every step.

  She hated it.

  She hated the sting of salt in her wounds. The dizziness is from standing too fast. The ache in her stomach that no rabbit-sized meal could silence.

  But more than that, she hated that she had no choice but to endure it.

  “Pain means I’m alive,” she muttered through gritted teeth. “Alive means I can still save them.”

  And so, she carried on.

  Her stick-tool repaired, now reinforced with sand-dried sinew and sharp rocks, became her third arm. With it, she dug into hard-packed dunes, she collected jagged rocks, fetched cactus fruits, and even fended off a snake.

  Then came the sixth day.

  She woke with her cheek pressed to hot sand, the sun already brutal above. Her cloak was tattered, her boots wore thin, and her knees were raw with red.

  The dunes looked the same in every direction.

  She stumbled. Fell again.

  Blood smeared the edge of her lip as she coughed sand. “Get up,” she whispered to herself.

  She did.

  And then the ground vibrated.

  A low rumble.

  She froze.

  From behind a dune, something emerged—massive, crawling, armored.

  A desert fangback.

  It was worse than any book had described. Its scales glistened like cracked glass, its jaws opened wide with rows of yellowed teeth. Spines along its back rose and clattered like bone chimes in a storm.

  It saw her.

  And it charged.

  Prick screamed, stumbling backward and reaching for her stick-tool. She raised it—futile as it was—and pointed it at the beast, yelling to scare it off.

  The fangback didn't care.

  It struck.

  She dodged, barely, but her tool splintered under its claw. The shards scattered. Her only defense was gone.

  Her legs gave out. She hit the sand hard, breath knocked from her lungs. The beast reared back, ready to pounce.

  Then—

  “TA-DAAA!”

  A blur crashed between her and the monster.

  A cat-eared boy with a tail, visibly smaller than her, wielding a sword far too large for his frame, swung with a shout of reckless glee.

  The fangback snarled, distracted.

  Prick gasped, sand in her mouth. She blinked. The boy grinned like he was at a festival.

  “Don’t worry, fair maiden! Your hero has arrived!”

  She could only stare.

  The desert air was thick with tension, swirling sand in every direction as the massive fangback turned its glowing, malicious eyes on the boy.

  The beast was a force of nature—a creature built for destruction, its heavy, armored body like a moving fortress. Its claws dug into the sand, preparing to lunge at its prey.

  The cat-eared boy, undeterred by the beast's intimidating presence, swung his sword with wild abandon.

  His movements were far from precise—more the flailing of a child than the calculated strikes of a master swordsman.

  The blade cut the air with a loud whoosh, but the fangback barely flinched. The boy was too small, and his swing was too slow.

  He gritted his teeth, sweat dripping down his face, his arms burning from the effort. His sword, too heavy for his frame, felt like it was made of stone, but he was determined to stand his ground.

  A single strike from the fangback’s claws could end his life in an instant, yet he pressed on.

  Heroes fight like this. Heroes never give up, he told himself, even as he staggered back from a failed swing, tripping on the sand. He landed on his back, wind knocked out of him, but his eyes stayed fixed on the fangback as it raised a paw to strike.

  Prick, watching from the ground, could see it clearly: The boy wasn’t skilled enough to defeat this beast.

  But he wasn’t backing down, either. He kept getting up, again and again, his movements fueled by pure stubbornness.

  The fangback roared, lunging forward with terrifying speed. The boy swung his sword in a desperate arc, but it was too slow. The beast’s massive claws came down, clipping the edge of his shoulder and sending him spinning to the side.

  “Hey!” Prick yelled, her heart racing.

  But the boy didn't stay down. Despite the blood seeping from his shoulder, despite the dizzying pain that must have been clouding his mind, he climbed to his feet.

  His breathing was ragged, but his grin never faltered. “I’m… I’m not done yet!” he shouted, swiping his sword again, this time more frantically than before.

  Prick watched with a mix of disbelief and admiration.

  This idiot, this child, was throwing himself at the Fangback without thinking of the consequences.

  But there was something in the way he refused to quit, something about his unyielding spirit that made her feel something strange inside.

  She couldn’t let him die. Not like this.

  Think, she commanded herself.

  Her mind, sharp and quick as always, started working out a plan. The beast was fast, far too fast for the boy to land a proper blow.

  But it was also predictable. It charged in a straight line, attacking relentlessly with its claws. If she could get it to stop chasing Whisk long enough, there was a chance—just a chance—that the boy might land a hit.

  She scanned the environment, her mind already formulating a plan. The fangback’s movement was like a pattern—a charging, attack-heavy style that left it open for a brief moment after each strike.

  The boy’s sword couldn’t pierce the beast’s hide, but a distraction might buy him the opening he needed.

  She grabbed her remaining tools—a handful of cactus fruit she had been carrying—and hurled them into the air, aiming for the beast’s eyes.

  The cactus pulp exploded in a cloud of sticky juice, temporarily blinding the creature.

  The fangback recoiled, snapping its jaws and pawing at its face as it tried to clear the goo from its eyes. The distraction lasted mere moments, but it was enough.

  “Now!” Prick yelled, her voice carrying over the wind.

  “Take the shot!”

  The boy, still staggering from his injuries, blinked at her in confusion for a split second before his eyes followed her gesture. He saw the fangback distracted, its vision obscured, and an opportunity like none he’d ever had before.

  With a roar of determination, he launched himself at the beast, wielding his sword with all the might he could muster. He swung with all his might, aiming for the creature’s throat.

  The blade dug into the fangback’s scales, but the impact was less than expected—the beast’s hide was too tough, too armored.

  But it was enough to cause the fangback to falter, its body jerking back in pain. The boy’s sword slipped free, but he was already retreating, his heart hammering in his chest.

  The beast was disoriented, blood flowing from the wound on its neck, and it staggered, roaring in pain.

  Prick moved quickly, her mind racing with strategies. She seized the opportunity, rushing forward to grab another tool from her satchel: a jagged rock she had collected earlier. She wasn’t the warrior here, but she could still help.

  As the fangback stumbled, she threw the rock with pinpoint accuracy, hitting it square between the eyes.

  The beast howled, enraged, but it staggered back, giving the boy another opening.

  With one last, desperate yell, the boy swung his sword once more—this time with all the willpower he could summon.

  The blade hit the beast’s side with a sickening thud. The Fangback’s eyes widened in surprise as it staggered, its massive frame crumpling to the ground with an earth-shattering crash.

  It was over.

  The boy fell to his knees, gasping for air, his body trembling from the exertion. His sword fell from his hand, landing in the sand with a dull thud. He barely noticed the blood soaking his clothes or the way his legs shook beneath him.

  All he could focus on was the feeling of victory—of having survived.

  Prick, exhausted and still shaken from the fight, took a hesitant step forward. She wasn’t sure whether to congratulate him or chastise him. He had nearly gotten himself killed—but then again, he had helped kill the beast.

  She glanced at the fangback, its monstrous form lying still in the sand, and then back at the boy, who was looking at her with a grin that was part exhaustion, part pride.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, his voice ragged but triumphant.

  Prick stared at him for a long moment, her thoughts spinning. He had no training, no real strategy, but his courage had been undeniable. And that, at least, she could respect.

  “You almost died, Mr. Hero,” she said, shaking her head.

  “You’re lucky you’re still alive.”

  The boy just shrugged, his grin never fading. “Almost is still alive. And besides, I did save your life, didn’t I?”

  She sighed. “You are impossible.”

  But as she looked down at him, a strange warmth filled her chest. For the first time in days, she didn’t feel entirely alone.

  “I’m Prick,” she said quietly.

  “Prick?” The boy tilted his head.

  “That’s a weird name.” Prick sighed.

  “It’s short for Prickilliana Ironhart II.”

  The boy blinked. He then proceeded to blink again. “Wait. Ironhart—as in the Ironhart? The royal family of the human kingdom?”

  He took a cautious step forward, suddenly more interested. “You’re a princess?”

  She nodded. “Yes. And before you ask, I’m not out here for a royal stroll. I’m searching for the Lost Oasis.”

  The boy scratched his head. “The Lost Oasis… Hold up—is this about that Eternal Heat thing? That curse that’s been turning everyone across the desert into stone?”

  “I’ve heard of it. Even towns near the border are turning.”

  “Heck, even some of the beastman kingdom towns are turning!”

  Prick’s expression softened slightly. “My kingdom has already turned into stone. My people… all of them… one by one. I’m the only one unaffected.”

  Her voice dropped. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m connected to the curse... I don’t know how yet. But if there’s a way to fix it, it’s at the Oasis. That’s where I’m headed.”

  The boy's tail swayed thoughtfully before he placed both hands behind his head and gave a carefree smile.

  “Sounds like the perfect quest for a Whisk the hero, I’m Whisk by the way!”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “No,” she said, almost immediately, turning to walk again.

  “This is my journey. I don’t need anyone.”

  “You’re alone in a desert where giant lizards attack out of nowhere,” he pointed to the dead fangback, trailing behind her as she marched forward.

  “And I did help, you know. Plus, I’m good at swinging swords because I’m a master swordsman and…”

  She didn’t look back, just said, “I’m serious. Go home.”

  Whisk kept following anyway, kicking up sand with each step, humming an off-key song as if her words meant nothing.

  “So… Do princesses snore? Just wondering. Gotta know what I’m dealing with if we’re camping under the stars.”

  She stopped and glared at him.

  “This is a quest where I’m needed!” he said cheerfully.

  Prick rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t stop the corner of her lips from twitching upward.

  The desert was far from forgiving, and the journey ahead was still long. But in that moment, for the first time in days, the weight of the world didn’t seem quite so heavy. Maybe—just maybe, maybe this ridiculous boy would be a help to her.

  And so, their journey continued.